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Memory Alpha:AOL chats/Ronald D. Moore/ron068.txt
Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 7:55:42 PM From: RonDMoore Hi, again. It's been pretty hectic around here the past couple of weeks, so I haven't had a chance to get on-line for a while. (Sorry to have missed the Great Clinton-Nixon Bake Off, it looked like fun.) I'll answer the stuff in this folder first since it's the most current and relevant, then go back and try to get some of the questions from folder #34. However, you might want to repost anything from 34 or 33 in here to have a better chance of getting an answer. <> Yes. The other characters do know what happened -- Dukat probably babbled the details of the event over and over again. <> Our thinking is that the Prophets probably would stop any Dominion ship from coming through the wormhole. <> You never know... <> Yes. The Prophets are an integral part of the DS9 landscape and Sisko's interaction with them forms one of the primary threads of the series. <> We do have some ideas about the meaning of these lines, but I'd rather let you all speculate about them. <> The intervention of the Prophets was something we discussed at length during the development of the six episode arc. As I said above, the Sisko/Prophets story is something we consider to be a key element of the series itself. To us, the finale of "Sacrifice" was something that came organically out of the overall story of DS9 and that's why we did it. The journey that Sisko has made from "Emissary" to "Sacrifice" is a profound one -- he's gone from a man who questioned the very existence of the Prophets to asking them to behave like gods and save their "children" down on Bajor. There will be a price exacted from Sisko for daring to bring the Prophets into this conflict and we'll play that out as the series continues. <> Could be. (Yes, you will continue to get vague answers from me about the future developments in the Dominion War.) <> I never really thought it would get this much activity in such a short period of time. I still enjoy coming here and I hope that you all do too. -------- Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 8:10:37 PM From: RonDMoore <> We liked the deliberate ambiguity of this scene and were hoping you'd ask that very question. Did she know or didn't she? It's something we'll address later on in the series and for now it's good to let you wonder. <> We made a conscious choice not to give Odo the Kirk-makes-a-speech moment regarding the value of humanity. This seemed like very familiar territory within the Trek mythos and we're more interested in taking Odo down unexplored paths. While Odo certainly sees the value and worth of humanity (along with the other "solids" he's met) the reason he stayed behind had more to do with a certain Bajoran Major than with a new-found "galaxy-view". <> No. Sisko had no reason to believe that the Prophets would intervene in this situation as they have never shown any inclination to get involved in "linear" affairs up until now. <> I think we could've used Jake a little better as well. Sometimes our plate does get very full and we find it hard to deal with everything on it. That said, I rather like the challenge of keeping all these different elements going, even if it means making a misstep occasionally, because the payoff can be so very rewarding. <> Every hear of the Stork? <> Kira was given a subscription to the Bajoran Hunk of the Month Club by Sisko in the unaired Director's cut of "Emissary." I believe this version was broadcast in Europe. -------- Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 8:29:00 PM From: RonDMoore <<"Sacrifice of Angels" what was Bashir doing on the bridge of the Defiant??? I know the ship doesn't have much in the way of medical facilities, but I sure there was somewhere he could go to help injured crewmembers (and don't tell me no-one got hurt)...>> This is where TV convention intervenes. Bashir was on the Bridge because we didn't want to lose him from the episode and we weren't going to just do a cutaway down to Sickbay to watch him do med-tech in the middle of the action. <> Unless I'm mistaken, the listening post was not taken out by the Prophets. It was outside the wormhole and not affected by what happened to the Dominion fleet. <> Not officially, but there are certainly a group of stand-ins/background players that we do use over and over again in different makeup and guises. <> We will say something about this on the show. <> The Odo story went through numerous rewrites and many permutations. We had a lot of conflicting ideas about what to do with Odo -- everything from him leaving with the Female Shapeshifter to him saving the entire station in the end. We talked about Odo staying behind but being charged with collaborating with the enemy. We talked about Odo refusing to help our heroes, and then beginning a new journey on the station, one where he would no longer be friends with our heroes anymore. We talked and talked and talked, and ultimately we realized that we weren't going in any directions that any of us really wanted to explore. So we decided to have him make the heroic decision to save Kira & Co. and stay behind, while keeping as many options open for the future as we could. It was probably the right decision, although I do wish we had come to that idea a little earlier in the process so we could have built the overall Odo story with a little more clarity and ended it with a little more of a punch. <> As of this moment, just follow the standard guidelines and submit your script ASAP. -------- Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 8:47:31 PM From: RonDMoore <> Our thinking on the Prophets has evolved and so has their interaction with Sisko and Bajor. Yes, they are beings who do not deal in linear time and yes, they seem to have some kind of plan (that has happened, will happen and has always happened and is always happening... or something) for the Emissary and their special people (the Bajorans). There is a certain contradiction in that, but it's something we can live with for now and hopefully be able to reconcile down the line. <> Absolutely nothing. <> I think so, yes. <> I think she wasn't positive that Odo had made a final committment to the Link, but felt like there was a good chance he had. She wanted to test him in a sense, but also to present him with a fait acompli that he wouldn't be able to do anything about. <> Why does SHE have to use birth control??!! What about HIM??!! SEXIST!! SEXIST!! Catbyte, Klincat, atttack, attack!!!!! Boy are you in trouble now.... <> We will explore this idea more, but I don't want to give a definitive answer to this one. <> Just when I think I've seen it all on this board.... -------- Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 9:08:57 PM From: RonDMoore <> Neely was played by Sarah MacDonnell and I don't think she's been on Trek before. We could bring her back at some point, but have no plans to do so. << and Worf's relationship is Contrived writing at best. Their relationship only works if one pretends that they don't do the stupid things that send them to the infirmary.>> -- Catbyte Nice to see that some things never change... << I know you don't handle the starship special effects scenes, but any idea on why we see alot of Excelsior and Galaxy Class ships like the Enterprise B and D, respectitvely in the Federation Fleet but that we do not see Ambassador Class ships like the Enterprise C?>> It's a question of money; nothing more, nothing less. We don't have an Ambassador-class starship model sitting around. The one seen in "Yesterday's Enterprise" was built as a damaged ship and never meant to be used beyond that one-shot episode. We do use other starship designs that are completely CGI, but they are seen only at a distance because a fully rendered CGI ship that can hold up under scrutiny is basically as expensive as a brand new model. <> We'll keep questioning and poking at the Federation ideals as long as I'm on the series. I'm a firm believer in the idea that questioning one's ideals and even being able to laugh at them ultimately makes them stronger, not weaker (and if they can't hold up to this kind of treatment, maybe they shouldn't be upheld in the first place). <> Marc has a big mouth. The episode's name is still up in the air and that's all I'm going to say about it for now. <> I really don't know the technical reasons behind the different phaser rifle designs. <> We never said directly what caused the death of the Changeling, but it presumably had something to do with the crash of the ship in the first place. Something happened that mortally wounded it and so it couldn't hold its shape and eventually died -- turning into a sort of "dust". -------- Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 9:33:15 PM From: RonDMoore <> I was there and I liked the skit (although I wish Kelsey Grammar had been able to play the Captain as originally intended). <> No. We were unable to work out an problem with Andrea's schedule again so Cecily Adams will be playing the role. << the American voting public is a pack of morons? At least those who voted for Clinton and Perot...>> Good to see that the Cheap Shot Department is still functioning at peak efficiency. Please put in my order for a CS directed at the intelligence of those who voted in the majority during the 1980 and 1984 elections. Make it a rush delivery as I really need this CS as soon as possible. <> Okay, I can't resist: It's extremely hard to say how the Missile Crisis would've gone down with Nixon. One of the key moments in the Crisis was the decision by Kennedy to put off an attack on the missile sites despite the near-unanimous opinion of his advisors that it was time to attack. This delay allowed the Crisis to be defused peacefully and recent scholarship has discovered that the Soviets had nuclear warheads already in Cuba and were planning a relatialory strike in the event of a US attack. Would Nixon have delayed the attack as well? Hard to say. His key advisors would've all be different and his own instincts may have propelled him into a tougher line than Kennedy (remember that Nixon was still very much the Cold Warrior, as was JFK, at this point in his life) so it's possible that Nixon may well have actually triggered a full out nuclear exchange. But again, it's virtually impossible to say one way or the other. It also hard to argue that the Crisis would or would not have occured at all under Nixon. The oft-repeated assertion that Khruschev was "testing" the young president because of his perceived weakness at the Vienna summit seems to have been a myth, since recent accounts of the Crisis point to other motives for the deployment of missiles in Cuba. Khruschev saw the missiles as a reasonable response to the US deployment of forward-based systems near the USSR border -- not a deliberately provocative act designed to test the will of JFK. In that context, he probably would've sent the missiles to Cuba regardless of who was the US president. As for the Bay of Pigs, it is worth noting that it was a scheme dreamed up during the Eisenhower/Nixon administration. -------- Subj: Answers Date: 11/12/97 11:09:03 PM From: RonDMoore <> We've established that the symbionts do return to the underground pools periodically and that's where they presumably procreate. <> Odo was caught up in the joy and clarity of thought that comes with joining the Great Link, even on a small scale. It is an experience that is unique to Changelings and to everything else Odo has experienced in his life since his discovery in the Alpha Quadrant. The Female Shapeshifter did not exert any kind of mind control over him, he was linking of his own free will. <> The casting chores on DS9 are handled by Ira, Steve Oster, the Director, the Writer and Ron Surma (casting director). On Voyager, it's Jeri, Brannon, Meri Howard, the Director, the Writer, and Ron Surma. -------- Moore, Ronald D.